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El Niño wuz here, '16.
And still is—it rained, on and off, this past weekend. It was cloudy and cold. We're in April. April in California. But I'm grateful. Grateful for every little drop that touches down on California soil and doesn't immediately evaporate.
Here's a message from the Santa Clara Valley Water District:
"The much anticipated El Niño came short of delivering enough participation—oh, sorry, typo—precipitation to end California's drought. We did, however, receive enough rain to alleviate some of the severe conditions of our county. Our reservoirs are almost at normal capacity for this time of year, and state reservoirs as well as the Sierra snowpack experienced improvements."
As I said, I'm grateful. We still limit our family's water usage though.
This April brings another kind of rain. It's a more localized rainstorm that's fertilized a new garden, and that garden has a URL. (See "Making the Scene" below.)
My team and I have been knees down in the soil, (not sure what it is with me today... just typed "soul" instead of "soil") tending to the little seedlings we planted earlier this year, letting a few weeds live, natural that they are, and pouring in lots of sun and rain. We're not done... still a few seedlings not quite ready to face the world, but that's how all gardens are, n'est-ce pas? Continuously growing, evolving, blooming, recycling.
Just imagine the blossoms that spring forth from all these rains.
~ Birgitte
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Drumroll...
Announcing the JCT micro site!
Nestled right among all of my other books, and next to the other microsite we built for The Visionary, the "Cacao Stories" site is a bridge running through the canopies of ancient cacao groves, dipping in and out of branches and bromelias, linking myth with history, fantasy with science, adventure with wonder.
I'm excited to share with you this first, exclusive peek into the Cacao Stories micro site. You are the very first group of people to see it, and I want to hear your comments and input. Any critical notes are especially welcome! Remember I hail from Hollywood... the thickest skin you'll ever grow is either in a war zone or on the set of a motion picture.
Some of the sections contain premium content—things like deleted chapters, the cast of characters and information about them you don't get in the book, and a sampler of the coloring book that's coming out in the fall. This content is accessible only to Cacao Code Seekers.
What's that? A Cacao Code Seeker is anyone who has read The Jaguar and the Cacao Tree and who seeks, like Max and Itzel, to go further down the chocolate rabbit hole and uncover the greatest secrets of this wondrous food. Whether you bought or received a copy of JCT as a gift, reading the book grants you the key to enter the locked areas of the site.
Everyone who has bought the book through my site and created a user account, automatically becomes an active Cacao Code Seeker. Just log in with that user account and you'll have access to everything on the JCT micro site. Anyone else who's got a copy, either from an event, from a retailer, or as a gift, create a user account and email me so we can turn on access for you.
You know, of course, we're not done. Some cakes take longer to bake, and some chocolates take longer to make. Still plenty of work to do. Videos to produce and photos to upload. Cacao recipes to edit. More partners. Stuff for schools. Stay on that bridge!
Highlights from the site:
• Cacao Love Letters—letters of love from people intimately involved in the world of cacao.
• Partners—Our first three organizational partners. Much more to come here!
• The Art—the full set of chapter illustrations in JCT, in vibrant color.
• Good For You—an exhaustive list of the ways in which cacao nourishes and heals mind, body and soul.
• Coloring Book sampler*—download a PDF sampler of our upcoming coloring book, that you and/or your kids can color at home.
• The Vault*—never before revealed portions of the original manuscript and other things yet to come.
(* Requires Cacao Code Seeker access)
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Thank you to everyone who came to Berkeley and to San Francisco! More events coming up:
Saturday, April 16
A Chocolate Quest with Max and Luna
CJ Olson Cherries in Sunnyvale
10:30 to 2:00pm
For kids and adults
For more information and to register: RSVP with your choice of sessions
Saturday, June 24
Join me at Elevate Chocolate, the summer event of the Fine Chocolate Industry Association in New York!
Get tickets here
And once again congratulations to the winners of the General and Grand Prizes!
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